


if I bleed, you'll be the last to know

by charleybradburies



Series: Witcher Bingo 2020 [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drinking, Drinking to Cope, Eventual Relationships, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, Firsts, Friendship, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Communicating, M/M, Male Slash, Miscommunication, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Mutual Pining, My First Work in This Fandom, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oblivious Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Pining Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Possessive Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Pre-Slash, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Rumors, Self-Reflection, Separations, Sexual Tension, Witchers Have Feelings (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22461004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: The rumors about them, surely, had begun swirling as soon as Jaskier had debuted his first writings about the witcher.Counts for my Witcher Bingo, with "Mistaken for a Couple".Title from Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer". Chapter titles also from Taylor songs.
Relationships: Eskel & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Vesemir, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: Witcher Bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644958
Comments: 84
Kudos: 513





	1. the sound of my own voice asking you to stay

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy, kudos, and comment!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I can't decide if it's a choice, getting swept away.)
> 
> Title from "Treacherous."

The rumors about them, surely, had begun swirling as soon as Jaskier had debuted his first writings about the witcher. Perhaps, for a patron of that very first fateful tavern, the curiosity had been piqued when Jaskier's path decided to aim towards Geralt where he sat, as soon as Jaskier verbalized his request for feedback from him, as soon as Geralt spoke back. Interest to admiration to affection, they gave way so easily - particularly for a human like the bard, who seemingly could not help but feel every emotion at its fullest strength, even when the only one with whom he could share their presence was a stoic witcher. 

More often than not, though, those emotions and as many of their causes as could be shoved into something resembling poetry were shared widely around the Continent - stories in return for coin and for fame. And if sometimes infamy came clenched hand in hand with that, it was not of immense concern to Geralt, who had lived with scorn from the general public long before meeting his bard and would likely live with it long after the man was gone. After he finally decided better of continually endangering himself, let alone in pursuit and company of a man who hardly rewarded him. Geralt felt a surprisingly distinct dread towards the possibility of such an event, but it was preferable to the alternative of having to watch Jaskier die.

Regardless, Geralt has begun incorporating more and more very _human_ behaviors into his actions, primarily at his lessening insistence to be the cause of his companion's frustrations - and that, he thinks, this change he feels incapable of trying to stop, is where the problem has begun. On occasion Geralt feels as though he's being trained by the bard to respond as he wishes, but the witcher's actual desire to deny him has in fact waned to a significant degree. Not enough to openly _tell_ Jaskier as much, but enough to let his gentler actions speak for him. Enough to sometimes hold his tongue, enough to adjust to a second mare walking alongside Roach, enough to give small smiles when he watches Jaskier perform. Words were less necessary and less employed when he answered his bard's requests with action, and Geralt's prepared to pretend that's his motivation - but the unrushed conversion from something that bordered between animosity and basic tolerance to something rather like actual companionship was, frankly, quite comforting.

And again, precisely wherein the issues lie.

To an observer, to a regular human who perhaps believed witchers were devoid of most, if not all, emotion, it would of course be strange that Geralt seemed to _like_ the bard. Fairly enough, it was strange to both Jaskier and Geralt himself as well, but then, no human - who was not a witcher confined to shared space, training, and trauma - had ever stuck around long enough for Geralt to be able to evaluate whether he truly liked them or not. And Jaskier, well, Geralt did like him - enough so that he avoided the question of whether he liked him _too_ much. 

He'd set a threshold of his caring and surpass it, then another: the first time Geralt consciously jeopardizes a dangerous hunt because Jaskier becomes prey in that basilisk's eyes, the extension of his subconscious protective instincts. The third, fifth, seventh healer he takes the bard to, for all manner of creatures and ailments manage to make their ways to him. (He's usually fine within a matter of a couple days, but Geralt does not cease worrying.) The fourth time they've been parted, and the shortest, which ends when Geralt hears the exuberant chanting of "toss a coin to your witcher" and for once, walks towards it. 

(The first time he'd _rushed_ to find medical and magical care for Jaskier, the first time he came entirely too close to selling his soul for the other's life, the first time he allowed himself to be dragged to court for Jaskier's purposes and protection.) 

The first, second, third time Jaskier explicitly states that he's choosing to retire to their shared room - shared bed and bathtub, often, for innkeepers can be stingy - rather than pursue the woman who'd spent quite a few minutes working to charm his fancy clothes off. The first, fifth, tenth time Geralt passes up a town's brothel after the promise of that chamomile oil Jaskier's so good with when Geralt's tense or pained. The first, third, sixth time they stumble over defining exactly what their _relationship_ is, and someone makes a quick judgment that does _something_ to Geralt's heart, whether he can identify it or not.

The first time he notices that the person flirting with Jaskier is another man, muscular and blond and entirely too _tactile_ with him for Geralt's taste, and then when, with only the slightest acknowledgement, Jaskier leaves with the man and Geralt is left with his ale and the bile that rises in him - the jealousy he's choking on before he's recognized what it is to begin with.

The first time Geralt hums one of the songs Jaskier's been working on to cheer up the momentarily sullen bard; the first time he hums a ballad thoughtlessly, and reels himself back after being met with Jaskier's smug, surprised, _delighted_ smile, and then his ravings, which Geralt barely pretends to ignore. 

The first time Geralt listens to the crowd as Jaskier takes a short break in his well-appreciated performance and hears a group of women, one of whom had been among those Jaskier had given more than a couple glances, talking about how _unfortunate_ it is that the bard is _taken_. 

Jaskier flits over to his back corner booth, beaming and jokingly bowing as he presents an ale to his muse, watched from the rest of the tavern all the while, and Geralt decides he'll refuse to contend with the _possessiveness_ that threatens to take him over. The women are in the background, at least supposedly, but even focusing on Jaskier, he catches a scoff and the word _witcher_ , and he _realizes_. 

And he sits back and listens to Jaskier monologue about songs that Geralt was _present_ for him writing, feeling both guilty and victorious.

Unfortunate, indeed.


	2. the windows of this love, even though we boarded them up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: this is in my Google Keep as "witcher intervention".
> 
> Less fun fact: I've never ever written Eskel before and he might be pretty OOC, so sorry if that's the case.
> 
> Title from "Death by a Thousand Cuts."

It's during a performance - and oh, so often these thoughtful moments are during performances, for ironically they're some of the few situations in which Jaskier is not directly speaking to him - that Geralt really gets to thinking about the recent development in their publicity. Since the _unfortunate_ incident, he's noticed that they've been looked at differently, something he's sure came as a gradual change, but the attitude about them is certainly different from when it first had become common knowledge that they traveled together. They'd both developed reputations that preceded them before then, but notoriety had begun to rear a larger, heavier head. 

Perhaps the _rumors_ were all the more common because it was hard to imagine why any man would choose to be some sort of _partner_ to a _witcher_ if there weren't some deeper, more persuasive, more rewarding _partnership_. That, for its part, was an entirely sound reason to have suspicions, and Geralt himself still could be found confused. He vacillated between accepting Jaskier's companionship and reminding himself that it was best not to be attached, and it hadn't made for anything particularly steady, excepting Jaskier's fairly consistent personality and lifestyle choices.

On a moral level, Geralt took no issue with Jaskier's promiscuity, nor his like of men. (He'd be a hypocrite to judge for either, besides.) On a professional level, it irked him that the aftermaths of some of the bard's exploits damaged their combined ability to earn their keep. On an artistic level, Geralt would only verbally deny that Jaskier's wide range of romantic and sexual experience aided him in his writing. 

On a personal level, Geralt finds unexpected conflict, and about the worst parts. He knows he has no inherent claim to his friend's attention - even if he's reached the point of calling him friend - but he finds more and more that there's a bitter taste in his mouth when that attention so explicitly goes to someone else. 

And that's saying nothing of the strength gained by his more _intimate_ considerations in recent history. Even at the beginning, he was not unaware of Jaskier's attractiveness - something easily judged by appearance and charm, neither of which Geralt was quite as clueless about as the bard accused him of being - but they'd met in their particular situation and had developed a particular type of relationship. One that didn't call for Geralt's looming jealousy, because Geralt had no right to determine who Jaskier chose to go to bed with, aside from the single succubus who had made the grievous error of picking his bard as prey. It has been months since then, and it's not as though Geralt has any reason to assume anyone in the process of seducing Jaskier has foul intentions, and yet perhaps it's his overreaction to that which has caused them to be in their situation. 

In yet another twist that added to the awkwardness, Geralt was certain that Jaskier was well aware of the change in public perception - and he'd made no verbal mention of it, let alone attempted to deny the claim. He seemed to accept that as his lot, and the few recent times he'd decided to bed someone, he'd looked to Geralt before leaving and waited, as though he was asking permission. Geralt didn't know how to tell him not to, because the only versions of that conversation he could imagine were the reasonable statement that Jaskier was not _owned_ and he could do as he pleased, and the much stronger desire to restrict the bard from fucking _anyone_ , a right he didn't have, lest Geralt's jealousy eat him alive.

 _Anyone but me,_ a small, deep, barely acknowledged voice growls. Jaskier is enthralling the crowd with a ballad about unrequited love, a servant in love with her master, a sad song Geralt's heard near a thousand times, and it's the moment Jaskier looks at him, over in the corner booth, that he realizes he's actually being watched.

He pushes away the embarrassment that rises up when he sees that observer is another witcher, and one he knows, at that. Geralt can't help a smile, though, and is glad that's taken as a sign for his friend, his _brother_ , to come join him. He knows for certain there are eyes on them now, eyes that Jaskier will try to take away with some fresh, compelling material, probably still about witchers, but he'll let their happiness make someone reconsider whether witchers feel - and _oh_ , they do.

"It's been quite some time," Geralt says as they join hands, using the contact to pull into a short-lived hug.

"Too long," Eskel agrees, sliding in across the booth, and he sounds - he _feels_ \- displeased. 

Geralt asks - and immediately regrets asking - if something is wrong. Eskel's younger features don't form Vesemir's paternal expressions quite as they would come from the source, but with his perpetual annoyance, so similar to Geralt's own, the point is clear enough. Geralt rolls his eyes. 

"You know what this is about," Eskel says, and Geralt is almost pleased that his voice drips with pity now, not with frustration, though Eskel's more normal countenance remains. Still, he sighs.

"I am not _so_ far removed from the workings of the world that I could not guess."

It occurs to him, momentarily, that full honesty might be his best move, but he's already in deep here, and for some reason, he wants to dig deeper. 

"The bard is only human," Eskel reminds him.

"Jaskier is indeed human, yes," Geralt answers, knowing that the angle here is to be confirmation that he, as a witcher, _should_ be pushing away his companion. 

"Mortal, and fragile." Geralt's response has served to annoy Eskel further, and his tone shows it.

"And tougher than he looks - but you say _that_ like you doubt I can protect him."

"I worry you aren't protecting _yourself_ , Geralt."

Geralt lets that sit for a moment, giving only his typical "hmm." It was, unfortunately, a terribly good point - and from someone Geralt knew cared, as valid as a worry could be.

His peripheral vision catches a similar worry from his bard, and he grits his teeth anyway, strangely emboldened, as though he needed assistance with that.

"I'm not a child in need of coddling. I'd have hoped you'd spare some of your sparse happiness for me, actually. Pity, that."

It's Eskel's turn to roll his eyes.

"Pity, that," he repeats, and from his tongue, it's almost _scathing_. 

But only _almost._

He softens for a moment.

"He adores you, quite clearly. Your praises are sung all across the Continent. One might only wonder how you earned that."

"I didn't," Geralt offers without hesitation, and Eskel's surprise is evident. "He decided on _singing my praises_ just as easily as he decided he'd enjoy _tagging along_ on contracts." 

"Very easily, then."

"Hmm."

Eskel gestures to the barmaid, who hesitates and then pours him a drink. He stands to go grab it, and a few people move out of his way with curiosity covering their faces; Jaskier is standing now, and repositions himself to be able to meet Geralt's eyes again, the questions of the situation's particulars and the witcher's emotional state filling his own. In the few seconds they get, Geralt manages to mouth "Kaer Morhen," and is somehow not surprised that Jaskier nods in comprehension, having paid enough attention to Geralt's lips even as he was performing. 

Eskel doesn't _interrupt_ per se, but he gets an amused look in the moment he spends waiting and drinking. 

"Couldn't wait any longer to talk to him, hmm?" he asks, and this time, Geralt can hear a brotherly teasing he's more comfortable with than the earlier criticism. 

Geralt already knows the beer isn't very good, but something terribly human inside him gives the impression he needs it. Eskel moves back to the booth, standing at the side, likely blocking the view on purpose.

Geralt leans back and continues to sip his drink. 

"He can't live forever," Eskel says, with all the intentional seriousness of an important discovery.

"Neither can we," Geralt answers as firmly as he can. "He's alive and with me for now." 

Eskel considers him, then tips his head back and downs much, if not all, of his drink. 

"And good to you?" he asks then, carefully. 

"Eskel-"

"It's important," the other witcher says, his tone one of warning but his eyes bright with interest. 

Geralt hesitates, but, "very. Like no one else would think to be."

"To a witcher."

"To anyone, let alone a witcher." 

Eskel takes an alarmingly deep breath, but then settles himself.

"I'm only here one night. Send me off in the morning, and let me meet him." 

"Hmm."

" _Geralt_."

"You'll leave about dawn?"

Eskel nods with a grin, and gives Geralt his goodbye - and slips a crown onto the table.

Geralt glares, but Eskel shrugs.

"A coin to my witcher," he chuckles.

"You're supposed to toss it," Geralt pretends to nitpick.

"Hmm," is all Eskel gives in reply before turning away, setting a few coins and his empty tankard on the bar, and heading out the door. Eyes follow him this time, too, but Geralt's go right back to Jaskier. Jaskier, knowingly, meets that gaze. 

"Later," Geralt mouths, and Jaskier's lips return the word with a smile that effortlessly lightens the mood, making it a promise. A few people look over to Geralt in his corner, as though they'd glean something they didn't know from him, but he still frightens most humans, and they soon look away.

All the better for him, for a chance to consider what's happened - and what he's dragging himself and Jaskier into.


	3. the only one who's got enough of me to break my heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Teardrops on my Guitar."

For the first time in their recent history, Geralt can identify a flush of anxiety about retreating to their room at the inn. There was some inevitable difficulty in sharing space with another man, particularly one he'd only known as an adult - some awkwardness in closeness, in establishing routines, in unconscious arousal - but it had been a while since that nervousness had also related to a conversation with Jaskier. Perhaps that's because they know well enough _not_ to speak of some things, he muses, as he watches Jaskier continue his performance. 

He couldn't avoid everything forever, though, not if he was keeping company with Jaskier for the foreseeable future, and unfortunately for Geralt, he did intend to. So tonight, going back to their room means talking about his conversation about Eskel - and the assumptions Geralt didn't challenge, which will no doubt be front and center when Eskel insists on speaking with Jaskier tomorrow morning.

They're front and center as the pair walks back to the inn, too; Jaskier with a heavy purse gently jingling at his side and his lute strapped to his back, green doublet open to the chilly night and the tangy sweat of effort mingling with mirth and curiosity, and Geralt with a mind full enough of thought that it could barely think except to register his surroundings. Hardly acceptable, for a witcher, to be so vulnerable, so unfocused, but sometimes that was the way of things, and more often was it so when Jaskier was in focus. Luckily that was not quite as common when he was actually in the process of working, but when there was no monster to distract him that duty apparently now fell to his bard. 

_His_ bard, at that, because at some point the word snuck in, perhaps because some stranger said it, perhaps because Jaskier kept calling Geralt _his_ witcher, but no matter its reason the term was present enough that he's said it aloud and not only in the company of his own traitorous thoughts. And wasn't that just where it all had gone awry? When something of some unknown description had happened, and he'd begun getting soft? When he'd adjusted to letting Jaskier make him even softer? When the partner to softness had become a latent lustful desire? 

There was so much to consider, and so few ways to say any of it. That had not been his skillset to begin with, and there had been a steep learning curve he resented putting up with at his age, once he'd spent enough time with Jaskier to actually intend to change his "emotional availability," as his companion called it. 

"Witcher dear, a copper for your thoughts?" 

_Speaking of which._

The honey-sweet voice was tinged with concern, now, and somehow when Geralt was snapped out of his thoughts by it they were already back in their room at the inn. Jaskier has his doublet half down his arms and an expression that almost certainly means he had actually been speaking for some time before Geralt had become aware of it, which was strangely uncommon now, although early on in their partnership Geralt had made something of a point of tuning out the bard.

And then Jaskier had become _his_ bard, and, well, it was this very place they'd found themselves in.

Jaskier wets his lips, eyes staying on Geralt as his brow furrows, and shrugs off the rest of the doublet, as though he'd only been waiting for the witcher's attention. 

_Fuck._

Geralt inhales, far more sharply than he'd have chosen to if he were somewhat more aware of himself. Jaskier reaches, almost immediately, for the straps on his chest, as though it was the constriction that shortened his breath. In the thoughtless second before the hand has reached him, Geralt grabs Jaskier's wrist, realizing his own use of excessive strength only from the momentary wince that crosses Jaskier's face when his fingers are wrapped around him. 

It's half a distraction and half a reminder - Geralt's hand snaps away, only to lay itself flat a moment later, trying to cue Jaskier to let him see the wrist, which he allows with far too much ease for a man who's just been grabbed by a fucking witcher. There's an angry red ring around the wrist, and it makes Geralt wish it was him wearing it.

"Fuck," he can't help but say aloud, and even to his own ears it sounds like an apology.

"Now you _have_ to tell me what's got you like this," Jaskier says, somehow sounding soft and empathetic, still concerned and still not frightened, even though his heartbeat is quicker than normal.

"Whatever you talked about with your friend, hmm?" he correctly guesses, and it briefly occurs to Geralt that his bard may be the only person to ever assume witchers were able enough to make friends that they could be friends with each other. He wishes that annoyed him, but it comes as a comfort instead, and he gently sighs for it.

"It almost looked like you were being reprimanded." 

Another relatively correct presumption. 

"Almost?" 

Geralt realizes that Jaskier hasn't moved his arm, and his hand is still resting above Geralt's. A wild act of trust, even if it doesn't particularly surprise him. He lowers his own arm, and now, for whatever reason, is the one moment he sees some nervousness in the bard. Jaskier takes his arm back, though. Then, he wraps his own opposite hand around the wrist Geralt had grabbed, and the witcher's guilt rises like heat in a hearth. 

"What for? What do the witchers of _Kaer Morhen_ " - Jaskier says it with his practiced tongue, like he's said it a hundred times, like Geralt's early life is a collection of stories he's already been told, and it spreads _hurt_ throughout Geralt's chest - "think you've done? Surely something that's been terribly exaggerated." 

Geralt nearly chuckles, for if anyone's exaggerated his actions, it's almost certainly Jaskier himself, but he keeps that in as he's wont to do, and tries to keep the straight, nearly blank face he so often has. 

He decides to rip out the proverbial arrow, knowing that blood may yet flow from the wound. They're too close for this conversation, but Geralt can't manage to move away.

"You."

His voice is as deadpan as he can make it, but still he feels the confession in it. Jaskier's surprise shows itself in a few different facial expressions, and yet even with brow raised and lips pursed, he doesn't truly _seem_ surprised.

"Oh," he says, and _oh_ , he doesn't _sound_ surprised, either. He sounds expectant, probing. It confirms, though, that he too is _well-_ aware of the rumors of their togetherness, and gives very little insight into his feelings on the matter. 

"And _Kaer Morhen_ has opinions where I'm concerned?"

Though he's useless at identifying a potential reason, Geralt doesn't miss that this time Jaskier says Kaer Morhen with a bitterness atypical for him. 

Geralt lets himself look away, stepping back a hair, hoping to feel less of the acerbic warmth they're filling their small room with. He wants to assuage the bitterness, really, but his first, mad, thought is to kiss it away, and he knows that won't do.

A growl escapes him, unbidden, and Jaskier's eyes widen. Geralt hates to restate old conversations, but he's not got much choice at the moment. 

"You already know how dangerous you're making your life," he begins, entirely expecting the eyeroll he gets from his bard before he's even finished the statement, "and the basic differences - lifespan, strength-"

"I may not have spent my whole adult life in university but I'm perfectly capable of listening when I'm being lectured to, yes, Geralt." 

His name comes out too softly for the remark to sound scornful, and Jaskier distracts him the moment after, anyway, moving his hands to his hips. 

"Then you can understand why another witcher might take issue with the sort of relationship between us that your _songs_ seem to be implying these days."

It's a low blow, to jump for that, but Geralt's not sure how else to say it without stumbling into saying that he'd actually quite like something like the relationship people are widely assuming they have. 

"My - _me_? Oh, _no_ , that's not fair. The only reason we're having this conversation is because _you_ didn't tell him anything otherwise. _You're_ playing along."

Jaskier's offense shows mainly as the surprise he'd not had moments ago, a scoff coming along with some very dramatic gesticulating that Geralt has to will himself not to smile at while he wonders how to verbalize the question of what game they're playing.

He can say his other piece, though, with the first in the open.

" _Eskel_ wants to meet you - tomorrow," he says, and a bit of nervousness slips through the otherwise flat affect. (And while Jaskier is only human, he's spent enough time with Geralt to recognize it, which makes the fact of it so much more stressful.) 

Jaskier's eyes widen again, though there's a twinkle in them that lightens Geralt's chest.

"Oh, I have to get the "big brother talk" from a _witcher_ , do I?" 

"We're from the same cull, he's not-"

Jaskier's crossed arms and half-feigned annoyed expression shuts him up before the thought's finished. Geralt lets himself crack a small grin, and Jaskier laughs a disbelieving laugh. 

That breaks in a moment, but even the break is peaceful. Geralt musters the will to move from the spot he's been stuck in, starting to get ready for bed. There's no need for a bath tonight, and a large part of him is grateful. He feels Jaskier's eyes on him still, but only looks back again when he starts to speak.

"Anything you told him that I need to work around, or should I just do what I always do, and tell the truth in a fancy way?"

Geralt cocks his head.

"You don't _always_ tell the truth." 

Jaskier points a finger at him, and then decides to poke him with it.

"How _dare_ you. This is _your_ friend I'm fudging the truth to. What if he decides I'm not good enough for you, that I can't be a worthy partner?" 

The strangeness hits him before anything else - the genuine way Jaskier says it, as though he thinks he's not enough, as though any issues that could arise were his fault, as though he's really _asking_ , outside the context of this overblown situation. Like he truly _wants_ Eskel to approve, as though that will mean something for their lives going forward. 

Which it won't, of course.

"That's not his decision to make," Geralt answers as firmly as he can, trying to keep some emotion so it doesn't seem flat and uncaring - and yet he fails, for he catches what looks like disappointment, flashing in Jaskier's eyes and radiating off his person in short order. He readies for bed quickly, and takes the side of the bed farther from the door, as is their custom. 

"So, morning then?" Jaskier asks, and his voice is flat, which means he's hiding something that Geralt's unintentionally made him feel, and it puts unease back down in Geralt's stomach.

"Morning," Geralt confirms, as he slips in on his side of the bed and tries to settle.

The unease stays with him until they've both fallen asleep.


	4. the water's high, you're jumping into it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Tied Together With a Smile."

Geralt wakes at dawn, to a room stuffed with palpable tension, the bed's other half empty and cold as he is and Jaskier already awake, dressed except for a doublet and sitting in the room's chair, notebook cradled atop crossed thighs. Geralt watches him write for a moment, until he grumbles and scratches something out, and realizes that Geralt, too, has woken up. He gives a small, _weak_ , smile, and pain settles in Geralt's chest. 

"Bed's cold," Geralt states. It's supposed to imply more a question rather than an accusation, but Jaskier stiffens like it's the other.

"Thought witchers didn't get cold," he replies, his voice uncharacteristically level, closing his notebook and setting it down on his bag, no remark made on its newest additions - it's all very strange of him.

"We _feel_ it." That, Geralt can admit, is actually supposed to sound a bit more aggressive. Frustrated, at least. Jaskier was not one to bottle up even his less savory feelings, and typically shared them freely, so for him to be so closed off is concerning. It's happened before, in talking about things, that they seemed to be doing sums and trying to use incompatible coins, but Jaskier was usually very upfront about where he disagreed, not one to keep his voice flat and words inside him. More than not knowing why Geralt's words had elicited this, that worried him. 

It worried him _deeply_.

"I - I shouldn't have put this on you, Jaskier. He assumed, just like-"

"It's fine, really," Jaskier says, his voice a bit stronger but even less capable of convincing Geralt that it is, indeed, fine. "You were right about my songs being able to give that impression, anyway. People think this because of me."

Jaskier sounds miserable, and Geralt's aware of the pain in his chest again. 

He'll need to alleviate that before he leaves; it would help no one for him to falter with the wraith, let alone on the first contract he'll have finished by himself in months now. Pitifully, he already dreads the silence he used to crave, even though it's for a single day.

Geralt considers reiterating that he hasn't corrected anyone who's assumed romance between them in quite a long time - not that he knows that Jaskier has recently, either, but as the romantic, the storyteller, the bard had a greater excuse to be ambiguous. Geralt, though, had once been firm in insisting they weren't even friends, and it's troubling to know even witchers fall this far. 

(What a story it can be, how dramatic the songs, he wants to goad, to remind Jaskier of what he can make of the situation, for he's always one to try to make the best of anything and it's so very out of character that he's not honed in on that. He'd done what he intended and spread the word of Geralt's victories and better deeds and acceptance of companionship, and the world had listened, well enough to spin his works into a universe of their own, where witchers smiled at children and saved innocents without pay and went to community events and fell in love, redeemed from being butchers by the power of human affection and - _well_. The truth in any and all of that was debatable.)

It's true, though, that it's a deluge of emotion, and not a horrendous monster or searingly painful mutations, that makes him _feel_ he's being brought to his knees - a sword at his neck held in an unpracticed hand that faced the decision to knight him or wound him. 

A pretty hand, with the ornaments of rings and calluses, that's turned him into someone who's capable of thinking something that sounds just a bit poetic every once in a while. Truly...unfortunate.

_They think this because of me._

It's not that the claim is inaccurate - or that Geralt himself hadn't claimed the very same - but from _Jaskier_ , with a melancholy tone that doesn't _fit_ him, it wasn't _right_ , and the words just sit around in the air uncomfortably because Geralt hasn't the slightest clue what to do with them.

He gets out of bed and begins to get dressed, taking quiet notice how on this morning of all mornings, Jaskier looks away from him. This may truly be the most frustrating situation he's ever gotten himself into, he thinks, when he realizes that he _misses_ the looking. Jaskier's never acted like, let alone voiced that, he was an unpleasant sight - on the contrary, he's probably the only person who's thought that only Geralt _covered in guts and grime and grossness_ was too much _witcher_ to have in his room, and even then, he's the one dragging him to a bath instead of going as far away as he can manage. And whether it's been from confidence or something else, he's neither shielded himself from seeing Geralt in any state or from being noticed seeing him unless Geralt actually voiced a preference, which had gotten quite rare after Jaskier had started helping him with baths.

Geralt's putting on the last of his armor when Jaskier speaks again, and now his voice bears less sadness, closer to being neutral. 

"Eskel, you said his name is?" 

"Yes," Geralt affirms, almost disappointed that he's only asking a clarifying question. 

"And he doesn't think I'm a siren, or incubus, or something, right?"

Geralt chuckles lightly - he was sure of Jaskier's humanity, but neither concern was quite out of the realm of believability.

"Not that he mentioned."

"Yes, well, would he tell you? He knows you'll be away, doesn't he?" Jaskier's voice is closer to the voice he'd normally tease with, but it still doesn't sound the same. He turns back towards Geralt, finishing up with dressing himself in the blue doublet he'd worn for their last attendance at a noble's event. It's - of course - a very fine garment, and it's just the shade of blue that matches his eyes, which is striking and entirely unnecessary.

"He doesn't know about the wraith contract, as far as I know. He's probably assuming I'll be close by, brooding until he decides to leave."

Geralt is partly joking, and thankfully, it relaxes Jaskier some. 

"So I'm just...a well-known bard in love with a man who happens to be a witcher," he says, with a wistfulness that kicks Geralt in the stomach. There was no reason for Jaskier to have said it quite so, except that it sounded rather credible, and thus could be convincing. 

"That is the story," Geralt agrees.

Bitterness hits his senses then, some from Jaskier and some inside himself. Jaskier would put on this act, to convince Geralt's friend of whatever exactly Eskel deemed himself right to judge, and it was the fact of the act that hurt. The fact that this was what it had to be, what it _could_ be, what it would make of them - of him. Awkward, and uncertain, and wanting. 

But dawn has reached them, and that's less important than the day's agenda. There was a village to help, and a love to fake. 

Well, really, considering the lie was the roof over a house of truths, it was not _entirely_ fake, at least if Geralt spoke for himself. That blossom of love was still frightening and undeserved, but it wasn't as though it had absolutely no basis in reality.

As such, they don't act any differently aside from Jaskier's quietness and the acknowledgement that he won't be accompanying Geralt on today's job until they're actually at the tavern, faced with only a few people besides Eskel, who's already gotten a drink by the time they're there. 

"I'm not working, and you don't get to act the older brother, especially not when I've got so many tales to tell your bard here," he declares at Geralt's raised brow, and Geralt gives him a "hmm." He follows it with a warning he's fairly sure he doesn't need to give, but it makes sense to be frank about his intent to do harm should any come to Jaskier, even when he's speaking to a friend. 

The bard in question sends him off with a wish of good luck and a kiss on the cheek, and he actually smells like a recognizable mix of yearning and lust, the presence of which is baffling. Geralt realizes that Eskel, too, will make note of it, which he supposes is helpful in the current situation, and curses that it would be immensely strange of him to ask later how Jaskier had managed that. If he had any kind of magic, conjuring emotions would not be a skill that surprised Geralt, but the witcher was quite certain that wasn't the case. 

In the spirit of any and everything feeling off-kilter, Roach's responses as he talks to her on their way to meet the widow who'd written the notice about the wraith sound significantly more judgmental than usual.


	5. the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "The Story of Us."

Geralt returns to the tavern mid-afternoon, sweaty and sore following his encounter with the wraith. 

The barmaid doesn't wait for him to ask before informing him that Jaskier has gone back to the inn, and his stomach sinks to the floor - something was _wrong._ Jaskier deviating from their plan was not incredibly unusual, but in such a way that took him farther from Geralt instead of closer, on top of his discomfort that Geralt couldn't decode - it sends a chill down the witcher's spine. 

_Thought witchers didn't get cold._

"He left not long after that other witcher who was here. Didn't look too happy, but didn't say nothing about it neither," the barmaid adds, and Geralt pleases her when he gives up a few - too many, but he doesn't much care - of his newly-acquired coins in return. 

He rushes out, his one focus to find and fix. Momentarily, he thinks it would be better, easier, if he had a monster to contend with, if Jaskier had been taken away by something outside his control, a question Geralt could answer with a sword; blood would spill and Jaskier would say Geralt was _his hero_ in that voice that always sounded a little bit like he was actually serious, and they'd return to the inn and bathe and sleep and all would have some normalcy again when they woke.

It's proof of how terrible he is, that he would consider a risk to their safety - to _his bard's_ safety - better than an entirely truthful conversation about feelings.

But, of course, it's not a threat to physical safety that is causing their troubles here, and he's all too aware. 

He reaches their room and finds a sight that hurts more than he'd ever anticipated: Jaskier, hurriedly packing back up the things of his that he'd taken out of his bag, cheeks stained with streaked tears, eyes bright like prey in a monster's sight as he stops where he's standing by the bedside. 

Geralt clenches his hand; his immediate desire is to destroy whatever's done this to _his bard_ , and yet he knows it's himself. He was suffering for it already, but it wouldn't be enough, especially without knowing what sensitive spots Eskel had pushed, intentionally or not, and he doesn't imagine Jaskier is willing to share. 

Geralt barely manages a gulp as it is. Jaskier glances behind him to the door, anxiety building in him as he's evaluating his options, and the tension hangs in the air.

"You finished earlier than I expected," Jaskier chokes out after a few moments. 

"I can tell," Geralt answers tersely. Jaskier opens his mouth like he'll speak again, but he doesn't. Geralt is strangely compelled to fill his silence, even if he thinks any way he tries to say something will come out more harsh than desperate, more cruel than brokenhearted.

"Suddenly decide you don't want the stories?" he shoves out, not close to what he really wants to ask, but perhaps as close as he'll get. Jaskier gives an exasperated huff, and the part of Geralt that isn't full of worry is conscious enough to think of it as charming.

"Well, you've been telling me not to travel with you for as long as I have been, and -"

"And _now_ you've decided to listen to me?"

"Is that so absurd?"

"You rolled your eyes at me about this very matter _last night_." 

His voice actually comes out with the sound of his desperation, then, but Jaskier rolls his eyes at him now, too.

"Yes...well." Jaskier doesn't add _that was last night, and this is now_ , but he doesn't need to.

He reaches for another of his bright-colored doublets that he's set on the bed, and in watching him too closely Geralt notes that there's a purpling bracelet of bruise wrapped around his wrist.

"Is this because I hurt you yesterday?" Geralt asks, his voice softer than it ever is, and perhaps Jaskier, of all people, can hear the guilt in it. Jaskier's brow arches, and then he furrows it, turning back to look at Geralt with that injured arm raised.

"You mean this?" He doesn't wait for Geralt's nod before scoffing and declaring, "no, not this."

He grabs the doublet, and Geralt leaves his spot immediately inside the door to move towards him and take it before he can get it in his bag. Jaskier meets his eyes again, with offense and hurt and a tinge of surprise, and the air right around them now smells of anger and that bitterly saccharine yearning that reminds him of its combination with lust from this morning. Geralt had been too distracted earlier to think it might have been among the last times he'd be in contact with it, but he thinks of that now, and then tries to shove away the discomfort it brings to his chest. The time of trying to make amends with a friend - a dear friend, and he'd admit it if it came to that - was not the time to be confronted with the undercurrent of desire that had been changing the flavor of their time together. 

"What's changed, Jaskier? Is it something Eskel said?"

Jaskier stiffens even further when Geralt uses his name, and Geralt curls the doublet into his chest, pressing it against his armor. He realizes, vaguely, that it's dirty, that he's getting the doublet dirty, too, but despite his frustration Jaskier doesn't reach out to take it back. 

"Why, Geralt, what gave you that impression?"

Geralt lets out a sigh, raising his brow in question, and Jaskier returns the expression. It's made far too obvious how _close_ they're standing, now, how sharp their breaths are - how similar in height they are, if very different otherwise. Geralt thinks Jaskier looks over at his lips, but the bard turns away only a moment later, facing the room's back wall and taking away Geralt's best chance for assessment of his face. 

His own straying eyes remind Geralt of many likely reasons this conversation is taking place, his focus and function drawn away from what might be best in favor of a bard with his hands on his hips and his back turned. He _knows_ that Eskel must have reiterated his earlier points, points Jaskier is ill-equipped to challenge, and he stokes the flame of his anger again, knowing, too, that he's the one who put Jaskier in that situation. Geralt doesn't know how, anymore, to keep Jaskier safe from _him_ , if coupling restraint and gentleness doesn't help them, and it's entirely possible the only way _is_ for Jaskier to leave him. 

Despite having spent a great deal of their time together making half-assed attempts at getting Jaskier to leave, it had gotten harder and harder to ever leave him behind, and the idea that the bard would _want_ to leave has grown heart-rending.

_I'm sorry for wanting you. I'm sorry for not being able to say it._

"What did Eskel tell you?" is what he actually manages to growl. Jaskier's right hand clenches tighter at his hip, and Geralt gulps. 

"Nothing that-"

"Something, clearly-"

"Matters."

"If it's made you want to leave, it matters." 

There's a significant enough pause, then, that Geralt considers moving forward towards him, but he doesn't know how he'll handle either having his closeness rejected or having it accepted, so he's stuck in place.

It takes Jaskier a few moments to turn around again, and when he does Geralt focuses well enough on his face to see how _despondent_ he looks. If Geralt had still believed he'd be spared emotion, the stab through the heart would wound even more grievously, but as it is, he stays standing as the hurt lands and echoes.

"You only _want_ me because I'm leaving." Geralt wants to protest that, because his _bones_ know that's not true, but there's no respectable way to pare down how he _wants_ Jaskier, nor an explanation worth sharing as to _why_ he wants him. "You've been convinced being apart is better for years now - safer, anyway. You can't say you _haven't_. I'm doing us both that favor, finally."

"It's not a-" Geralt gets out, but chokes on the word _favor_ , caught on the idea that Jaskier sounds both heartbroken and resolute - convinced, even with his path to the door blocked by the witcher, that Geralt would prefer him gone, that it would be _better_. 

He doesn't wear the look of it, but anger jumps into Jaskier's scent. It shows in the force he uses to extricate the doublet that Geralt's been holding, but nothing else visibly noticeable.

"I can't stop you," is what Geralt gets out next, full of resignation and of pain he _knows_ Jaskier can hear because he sees the moment the bard nears a realization and then backs away. "But I won't say it's what I want, because it isn't."

Jaskier pauses, and for a moment Geralt starts trying to figure out how he'd answer the query of what he _does_ want, but it doesn't come. Jaskier slings his large bag over one shoulder and grips his lute case in the opposite hand.

"Do your best not to die, Geralt," he says, and the poetic flash of _"don't give me a reason to"_ is shoved down underneath Geralt's mounting feeling of nausea just as quickly as he thinks it. 

"You too, Jaskier," doesn't say anything like the same thing, but Geralt's not sure he can say anything else.

The bard in question leaves him with a kiss on the cheek again, a half-second movement as he pushes his way past. It takes all the willpower Geralt can muster to refrain from pulling him close and making that kiss _real_ \- raw, emotional, possessive. 

But it had been the last thing he'd wanted, years ago - to need someone, especially someone who needed him in return, so he clenches his hand in a tight fist instead of using it to grab and hold the bard who's no longer _his_. 

Geralt shouldn't have entertained the wild idea of Jaskier being his, anyway.


	6. the words that you whispered, for just us to know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (You said you loved me; why did you go away?)  
> Title from "Last Kiss."

_I worry you aren't protecting_ yourself, _Geralt._

_He can't live forever._

_The only reason we're having this conversation is because_ you _didn't tell him anything otherwise._

 _You only_ want _me because I'm leaving._

_I'm doing us both that favor, finally._

Geralt had been bound to end up alone again, someday. He'd always known that. 

However, he'd never thought to account for how deeply loneliness could hurt after letting himself adjust to having more than aloneness. 

When he'd first realized that he might be lonely without the bard, quite a few years back now, Geralt had dropped him off in a city, saying they needed a break but would surely meet again, something he'd said more to placate Jaskier more than to mean it.

Jaskier had fought him on that, back then. It had grown comforting - being argued with, told off. Jaskier had demanded to stay with him, admonished him for thinking lowly of himself, insisted all manner of good things about the witcher, even when they were impossible to prove to anyone, even when he knew Geralt would say they were untrue. Even when Geralt was pushing him away, he'd called out that it was because Geralt was uncomfortable letting himself grow closer to someone. Jaskier had cared in a way no one ever had - been _good to him, like no one would ever have thought to be._

Being alone was never supposed to hurt. He wasn't _supposed_ to feel much in the way of reaction to it. His mutations didn't remove any and every trace of emotion, but they were supposed to be mostly negligible. Something a witcher could take note of, if potentially useful, or otherwise ignore. Being shunned, derided, used - it was all part of being a witcher. If one let it matter too much, the actual job wouldn't get done. 

If one let themselves feel valued, especially by someone who clearly benefited from whatever arrangements they had, they only set themselves up for the realization that the person in question had not truly cared. Witchers weren't supposed to care with any depth, and they weren't supposed to let people pretend they understood what it would mean to care about a witcher.

Especially in the context of Eskel's interference, Geralt works to remind himself of all these things. He knows it would be less painful to let Jaskier go now than to fight for more of the bard's years and have to watch as they ended. 

To imagine this entire _affair_ will end well is to be like the child he was years and years ago, crying to Vesemir about how _surely_ his mother would come back for him - that she'd think better, eventually, of the choice to consign him to his future. She never had, and soon enough, the closest thing Geralt had to family were Vesemir and some of Kaer Mohren's other children, most of whom died before leaving the keep to serve the world through this (nearly) thankless career.

He shouldn't run after Jaskier. He shouldn't try to find him. He shouldn't try to gather his words together well enough to make some declaration of intent to _care_. He shouldn't be letting his guard down, drinking alone in a tavern, letting his displeasure look like more like sadness than misanthropy; he shouldn't have felt the desire to talk, when the tavern girl had asked, so sweetly, if something was wrong, and he could smell actual concern from her. It shouldn't have hit him right away, how familiar he'd gotten with the scent of concern where he'd normally expect fear. 

But he'd let himself get accustomed to being _cared_ about, and now everything that was his smelled like someone who had left him, and while Geralt can handle strigas and selkiemores and so much else that falls under the category of monstrous creatures, he can't handle _this_ \- the chasm between Jaskier's presence in Geralt's mind and in his company, between where they belonged and where they were, between what was desired and what had been said. 

He can't handle _heartbreak_. 

It's a terrifying word to hear in his own head, and more so because he'd never intended on admitting the possibility.

Of course, before Jaskier, he didn't truly think there _was_ the possibility. He had cared, and lost, and continued to care, sometimes enough to change, enough to consciously keep in mind people he couldn't save from their monsters. Renfri had been among the worst; he'd been a wild animal backed into a corner and so had she, and then there was Stregobor with his manipulations...

He had hated that Jaskier could and would get tied up in anything that sort of messy if Geralt was called upon to deal with it again. He'd have turned it into a song, surely - and one where Geralt was in the right, at that - but it didn't quell the guilt of failing to prevent harm coming to the bard, and yet that had been their way of things for some time now. As unwise as he'd thought it, Geralt had still been loath to let it end. 

He'd been a fool to think Eskel wouldn't say anything that affected them, but even in the couple moments when he'd worried it, he'd assumed they'd be able to _talk_ about it. He'd have imagined Jaskier to spill whatever of what had been said had stuck with him as soon as Geralt had gotten back - for him to insist Geralt bathe and then run him through the whole story as they undertook that. He'd have expected that before, until the previous night, at least - after Jaskier's joyful countenance had been taken away by his distress. Distress it apparently would have been wise for Geralt to have pressed him about - but that was never their way. _Jaskier_ was the one who had to pull teeth for his companion to share, and Geralt...Geralt had to remind himself he was no longer his companion.

 _Currently,_ he can't help but think. 

He can see Eskel's face and picture Vesemir's, though it's hard to know if Geralt's fame makes him the golden child or its context makes him a disappointment. It wouldn't be wise of Jaskier to want him the way people think the songs mean he does, and no matter what Geralt _wanted_ , it wasn't his place to ask, let alone expect care to grow into love, but Geralt still needs to know what he's done to break that care, even if he continued not to deserve it. What was it that Eskel said, that connected well enough to something Geralt had said or done, enough that Jaskier reasoned it wasn't worth trying to talk through? 

He doesn't think - doesn't _want_ to think - that Eskel explicitly told Jaskier to leave. Eskel was like a brother to Geralt, and had seemed to be leaning towards being supportive the evening before, even if he didn't _understand_ being so close to a human - to someone who, yes, even if all went well and they were partners for the entirety of his life, would leave Geralt of old age, quite possibly before Geralt got slow enough to die while working. The witcher's longevity would be a curse in that way, but the decades of a normal human adulthood were still a sizeable chunk of life to lay claim on, and Jaskier had changed his life entirely within a mere few years.

Yet, Geralt's quite sure he's never stated that he wanted more of them. 

He accepts Jaskier's presence easily, now, when the bard joins him, but his few requests for company are always said as explanations of his own actions; he'd say he's following a contract to the next town over, and wait for Jaskier to grin and declare he'd come along. 

He'd state that it's quieter when he's alone, but never say that he talks to Roach even more now, that silence is far more uncomfortable when he's alone, that he doesn't _want_ to be alone. He'd allow Jaskier to say they were friends, he'd stopped telling people they weren't; at one point he'd accepted that people referred to them as _each other's_ \- Geralt's bard, and Jaskier's witcher. He'd given Jaskier an immense amount of freedom in how they interacted, accepting touches and comments and _gifts_ he never would have accepted from someone else, but never dared to emphasize that he allowed those because their relationship was _different_. 

The only time Jaskier had asked why Geralt was different with him, he'd said the bard had worn him down.

He can picture Jaskier's dejected face to this day.

_Fuck._

The barmaid, who at this point has learned a great deal about their relationship entirely by accidental association, brings him a pitcher as he's finishing what he thinks is his fourth drink of the day. It takes him a moment to snap out of his long string of thought and realize that she's also brought a plate of foods, of sausage and carrots and a sweet bread that Jaskier had greatly enjoyed. He stands, ready to take it back because it's surely cost more than he can really afford to give, here, now that he'll have to find another contract quickly in order to have any money at all, and quite soon. 

If only he knew which direction Jaskier would have gone. There were many places he'd be immensely welcome, and even more that he'd be willing and able to spend time in.

The barmaid is looking at him just as he starts towards the bar, and she meets his eyes and shakes her head, smiling kindly; the smile brims and brightens when he moves and sits back down, pleasing her. It should simply be nice, a nice gesture from someone he knew little of, but he can't help but remember how rarely people had been kind to him before Jaskier, and then it hurts, and it settles in that part of his chest that always feels his pain first. 

He leaves the sweet bread for last, and finds it tastes bitter.


End file.
